Archive for the ‘Beer Making’ Category

When making wine at home, the usual expression that is used to describe this is “home winemaking.” When making beer, folks will often refer to “home brewing.” In actual fact, “brewing” technically speaking refers to steeping something with heat. Think of “brewing a cup of tea.” Recently, I’ve seen some websites refer to making wine as “wine brewing.”

When folks make beer at home using a simple beer kit containing malt extract and yeast, and no heating is required, it’s not really a “home brew.” The brewing has already been done and all the home beer maker needs to do is add water to the malt extract. When a home beer maker purchases all the necessary ingredients, whether it is a kit form or not, and is required to heat any of the ingredients like the hops and barley, then technically that person is “brewing” beer.

Winemaking is often referred to as “vinting.” Therefore, a home winemaker is a home vintner.

Not that I’m fussy about technical labels, but it does seem weird to me to see making wine referred to as “wine brewing.”

Yeast selection – some say it makes a difference in the final taste, while others who have years experience of home winemaking claim it does not – at least not noticeable after a few years, to the average home winemaker. John Iverson once wrote:

“Much has been written about the different flavor characteristics that various strains of yeasts impart. Differences undoubtedly exist immediately after fermentation, and they matter greatly to a commercial winery not wanting to tie up its fermentation capacity too long and wanting its wines to be marketable as soon as possible. But the differences are minor from the home winemaker’s viewpoint.”

Well, I have an interesting observation about mead and yeast selection that goes beyond taste. In January of 2007, I started two different batches of mead, using the same recipe. Same amount of honey (the honey came from the same pail too) and same water. The only difference was that in one, I used Lalvin EC-1118 yeast while in the other, I used a vial of “Sweet Mead Yeast” (#WLP720), the liquid yeast from White Labs.

After racking them both several times, they have been bulk aging in the carboy. I was thinking of bottling them today. I haven’t really paid much attention to either one in about 18 months other than ensuring the airlocks are correctly filled with water.

Today, here are the differences:

Color:
The mead fermented with the Lalvin EC-1118 is several shades darker than the one fermented with the liquid sweet mead yeast. I have no idea what would have caused this darker shade. It’s not as noticeable in the glass, but is very noticeable in the carboy. There was some sediment on the bottom of both carboys, and the color of the sediment was considerably different, with the liquid yeast mead a light beige colour. The sediment in the other carboy was a dark brown colour.

Specific Gravity:
As I expected, the sweet mead yeast finished off higher at 1.001 while the mead fermented with Lalvin EC-1118 finished at 0.998. I thought it might even go a bit lower than that.

Flavor:
It’s hard to describe the flavor of either of them at this point – I’ll have to think more about it and see what I think I’m tasting. But, the flavor of the drier mead is definitely more complex with more mouth feel too. The sweeter mead is pleasant – but not as intriguing, if you know what I mean.

Alcohol:
Using my “vinometer,” which is not the most accurate way of determining ABV (how I’d love to own an Ebulliometer!), the dry mead is 14% while the other is 11%. That may be pretty close – the starting SG of both was about 1.110.

Thoughts:

I expected there would be some differences in the taste and aromas, but was not expecting the very noticeable difference in colour. I’m not certain it’s due to the yeast – perhaps someone else might postulate some theory or explanation?

“Max Nelson earned his PhD in classical studies through pioneering scholarship and 10 litres of the oldest beer ever produced in Canada.

“The beer recipe reflected what they were doing in Egypt millennia ago,” says Nelson, a University of Windsor professor and beer history guru.

He describes the ancient beer, called bouza in Arabic, as intensely sweet-sour in taste and a beautiful ruby red in colour – once the heavy sediment settles.”

~ The Toronto Star

Along with a wee bit of history of beer and some attempts at tracing back why beer is sometimes shunned in preference for wine, the article contains perhaps the oldest known (and very simple) beer recipe known to man.

It’s interesting – and I may give it a try sometime.

Many home vintners and home zymurgists don’t know about the single most important ingredient available for use in their home brews. I’m talking about liquid yeast.

Liquid yeast is cultured in labs at all of the major labels. It is propagated from slants sometimes dating back to Pasteur himself. A slant is is simply a bacterial culture. Yeast eats the nutrient rich agar in a culture glass or test tube. Commercial enterprises have taken cultured yeasts specialised for particular beer styles or a grape and made available to the home brewer a simple pure yeast culture to pitch into their creations.

I use Wyeast Labs, not out of any preference, but because fresh packs are available locally from Paddock Wood where I get all of my brewing supplies.

Liquid yeast can be propagated from a single yeast cell. It is as pure as it can be. Dry yeast while much more numerous in active yeast cells, suffers from impurities. Liquid yeasts have much more choice compared to dry yeasts. As Ian is a wine maker, and as an example of the variety of wine yeast strains, here is a listing of Wyeast Labs available wine yeasts.

Liquid yeasts are not hard to use . . . and the added advantage is that if you take proper precautions, a few simple steps can extend the life of the yeast through more then a few generations of brew. That’s something unheard of with dry yeasts. I’ll talk about that at a later date. As a hook, my latest lager is the fifth lager I’ve done with this yeast.

Yeast is the single greatest ingredient to beer and wine. The
malts and juices provide the basis, but the yeasts create the
flavours, the alcohol and the balance. Proper yeast selection
can make or break the quaff-ability of a drink. Take some time
selecting the proper liquid yeast and you’ll notice the
difference.

Yes, all you wine lovers – I admit I enjoy a good cold one every so often as well. And making your own beer is almost as fun as making your own wine. Well… that’s not totally true, at least the way I’ve been making it.

Some folks like Lance at Catprint In The Mash go all out with their beer making. I’ve only used kits which contain all the ingredients mashed up, and ready to be mixed with water.

The last batch of Canadian Red style beer is gone, having been drank by all my friends. I think I had two bottles total. I’m going to be starting a new Canadian Red beer in the next day or so – today I bottled a Cooper’s lager.

I do have to bottle some Liebfraumilch shortly, as well as rack Gewurztraminer. A Pinot Noir will also be ready for bottling any time soon – but I just may let it age a while longer.

I also received a phone call this week from Lakeview Cellars to let me know that the Baco Noir is being harvested this week. That means a trip to Beamsville to pick up the 40 KG of must I ordered a few weeks back! I’m looking forward to that, probably on Sunday.

Finally bottled the batch of beer. It was my first attempt at beer making, and so I was unsure of how the final results would turn out. For around $18.00 worth of ingredients, and probably 90 minutes in total time, I ended up with 47 half litre bottles of beer.

I’m not much of a beer drinker although I do like a good cold one on hot summer days. My friend Roy came by after the bottling was done and he was the first one to give it a try. After the first sip, in his Cape Breton accent, pronounced the beer, “hey, that’s pretty good stuff!”

I guess that’s not really saying all that much for a guy that drinks regular Canadian brewed swill, but at least it passed the test of being a bit better than swill .

I’ll have to make sure there are some bottles left so that when Wendy gets home next week, she’ll be able to try it.